


Book Twelve Of The Yellow Codex

by gisho



Series: Background Characters [6]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Canon-Typical Awfulness, Meta, Mid-Canon, Poison, Sympathetic Villains, fun with chemistry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 20:20:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16271630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: Wherin a Smoke Knight and a Ghost Lady have an awkward bonding moment. (Written for GG Event Week 2018.)





	Book Twelve Of The Yellow Codex

\--

There had been _classes_ on lab safety, even just for the Smoke Knights, who'd only set foot in a lab to mix some special-purpose poison, or lurk in the supply closet while their principal did some inexplicable Sparky experiment. Or, possibly, kill someone while they were distracted by some inexplicable Sparky experiment. It had struck Ione as very silly when she was nine.

It did, however, give her an excuse to snap, "Begone or I will _glove you_ ," when she was throwing the White Ladies out of her distillery.

It at least made Shrinit step out of the doorway before she asked, "How much venom do you _need_? My poor spider is going dry."

"Complain to Madwa. I just mix up what she tells me to." Ione glares at the alembic. She's not even allowed to know the whole recipe and maybe develop her own variations, oh no, she just has to do the tedious parts that involve watching something precipitate for two hours, because Madwa Korel is so paranoid she doesn't even trust her own assistants. It's absurd. They're all on the side of the Goddess. "Can't you switch spiders?"

Shrinit looks somewhere between baffled and horrified. "But I raised her myself!"

"I mean to milk venom from." Huh. She hadn't known they were that individual that they cared. 

"They would not all allow it."

Ione blinks a few times. "Oh," she says, rather stupidly, and is glad she hadn't added _Am I dealing with complete idiots?_ to her question. "Well. Still. Complain to Madwa. _Please_ complain to Madwa, I don't know what she wants all this poison for when the idea is to bring Paris peacefully under the thrall of the Goddess." She slumps in her chair, transferring her glare to the portrait of the Lady of Sharp Crystal on the opposite wall. It's not exactly reverent, but she figures the Goddess can take it. 

Apparently Shrinit is willing to overlook a little irreverence as well. She steps forward again, hand curling on the doorframe. "If I put on gloves, may I come in?"

It's not worth arguing, is it? Not with a priestess. "Just don't touch my reagents. Some of them are caustic." 

After five years the technical terms still feel strange in her mouth. Ione hadn't realized, until she gained Madwa's confidence - as much as anyone had Madwa's confidence - that the Ghost Ladies weren't just a war band, that they had artisans and smiths and chemists. That their language had technical terms. She still has to drop back to French to name chemicals, though. Nobody's made a really good interpreter's dictionary.

Shrinit pulls on the proffered gloves and goggles without complaint, and perches on the other stool, like some giant blue-and-white bird. "What do you think of Madwa?" she says, softly, hands laying still on her knees. 

"I believe she wants to serve the Goddess, same as we do." The mortar is just barely starting to bubble; Ione taps its thermogauge. Still two degrees low. "She does get ... zealous."

"You think there's a place for her in the perfect world to come?"

Ione would press a hand to her eyes, except that it would smear her goggles. Nothing here is supposed to aerosolize, but she _likes_ her eyes, they're a very pretty blue and installing new ones would be so annoying. "I think there's a place for everyone," she says. "Isn't that what the _shk'ma_ are for? But if it was a choice between Madwa and our Goddess, well, that's not really a choice."

From the way Shrinit's lips curve around some syllable she doesn't let escape, for a moment Ione thinks this is it, she's finally going to hear a priestess speaking for the Goddess and the _shk'ma_ will turn from a distant itch in the back of her mind to a command she can't disobey, tugging at her muscles like a reflex action. But Shrinit closes her mouth again. The alembic starts to hiss. The mortar has finally edged up those last two degrees; Ione shoves its output tube into her catchbasin with a little more force than required and twists the valve. Chemistry is easy next to thinking about these things. 

"It's hard to imagine sometimes," Shrinit says suddenly. "That there will really be a place for everyone. Don't you think?"

Did she - did she come here for some kind of _reassurance_?

A priestess looking for comfort from a Smoke Knight? It's ridiculous. An attempt to trick her into heresy. That's the only explanation.

Well, Ione's always been honest, if she tries to stop now she'll go mad. "I try not to think about it," she says. "The world's going to be a lot simpler, that's all I care about. Our Goddess will tell people to stop fighting, and they will. Our Goddess will tell people to do what's best for them, and they will. I don't have to understand all the steps in between. If Madwa didn't have something important to do with the poison I wouldn't be making it. If Paris weren't important you wouldn't be getting so many _shk'ma_ ready here. I just have to have faith."

It's difficult sometimes. She doesn't know why the Goddess picks the vessels she does, why the grand plan is so slow. But Ione doesn't exactly have better ideas.

She's distracted by a sudden touch to the back of her gloved hand. She looks up, startled. Shrinit is giving her a look of sympathy that comes through better than she would have expected on the irisless eyes. 

"We all do," the priestess tells her. "Just be patient."

\--


End file.
